


Candy Red: Bright Little Dips In The Well

by TwinKats



Series: Candy Red Caste [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alpha Universe, Beta Universe, F/F, F/M, Gen, Humans, M/M, Multi, Trolls, actually should change that to 'will' and not might, ask and ye shall recieve, because i will, can come from anywhere, in the candy red universe, might even go mature to explicit if its requested, oneshots, prompted, taken from tublr prompts or just prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 19:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/776967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwinKats/pseuds/TwinKats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompted, Themed, Oneshots / Sideshots from the Candy Red Caste series. Can take place in any timeline, timeframe, age, and even be 'Alternate Universe' of Candy Red Caste series as well.</p>
<p>Current:</p>
<p>1. Bugul Noz - Signless & Psiioniic, an act of charity for a familiar face [characters Signless, Psiioniic, young!Redglare; Psiioniic 2nd POV]<br/>2. Defend - Psiioniic goes through a typical day, protecting his mutant blooded friend [characters Signless, Psiioniic, Disciple, Dolorosa; Psiioniic 2nd POV]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bugul Noz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bugul Noz - Signless & Psiioniic, an act of charity for a familiar face [characters Signless, Psiioniic, young!Redglare; Psiioniic 2nd POV]  
> Tumblr Prompt

You’ve been traveling for a day so far, in the daylight and in the night. Daylight travel is always tricky, which is why Mother had made each and every one of you cloaks out of ‘sun cloth’ -- a very heavy duty and expensive cloth designed to protect from the Alternian’s sun’s blistering rays. Sign is the only one of you that wears his all the time.

You are hunched, down into your cloak, trudging along in the bright light of the sun with your eyes aimed downward. Ahead of you is Sign and Di, walking huddled together, and ahead of them is Mother, the only one not in a cloak. You don’t understand how she can move around like that and not get horrible burns on her skin.

Sign and Di shift apart and Di races up to Mother. You know this because her feet suddenly leave his. Sign slows down, and the two of you are walking together. He’s not hunched under his cloak like you, with the hood drawn as far down as you can get it, and the cloak wrapped tightly shut. Probably because he’s used to walking during daylight. You don’t think you’re ever going to get used to walking during the daylight.

“They’re going up ahead to look for shelter,” Sign says, bending over to peer at your face.

“Good. Leth get out of thith horrible thun. Thath a great idea,” you say back. You’re a bit grumpy about it all, walking for this long. You hate walking this long. Sign just laughs and the two of you lag behind further, walking slower than Mother and Di because you are dragging your feet and Sign is matching your pace in an attempt to make sure you don't get left behind. Not that you would let yourself get left behind anyway, but you do appreciate the company somewhat until Sign does something that ruins your already glum mood further.

He shoves you, good naturedly of course because everything with Sign is good natured, and you stumble. For a moment your gaze is upward, and on the horizon you see desert yellow. Your hood slips back down, you bow your head, and you right yourself, curling your back into a hunch once more. You’re lucky your skin didn’t fall into direct sunlight at Sign's playful jab.

“I think thereth a thandthtorm ahead,” you say.

“Fuck. We’re not going to catch up to Mother and Disciple in time,” Sign replies, shifting next to you. He reaches out and grabs your wrist and pulls you in a direction. You stumble along after him as he runs.

“Where are we going?” you ask, curious.

“Safe haven,” Sign replies. “I grew up in these deserts, there should be an entrance to the caves nearby.”

“Caveth?” you mutter to yourself, but it’s hardly heard of the sound of the wind picking up and the sand getting closer. You stumble on a dune and suddenly the both of you are tumbling downward and amazingly enough safely into a cave. You breath a sigh of relief and pull your hood back. Sign does the same and just grins.

“See?” he says, waving his arms about like this was some perfectly planned incident. Knowing him it very well could have been. “Caves.”

“You’re impothible,” you mutter and walk further in. “How long do thethe thtormth lath?”

“A while,” Sign replies, brushing out his hair. “We’ll need to go further in to escape the full brunt of the storm. Come on.” He walks further into the cave and you quickly follow behind him with a sigh. This, honestly, was perfectly typical behavior, him heading off leaving the rest of you to follow blindly with no real reason except for a calmly stated sentence or half-formed thought.

“How are we going to meet back up with Mother and Di?” you ask but Sign waves his hand in your direction, a sort of negligent ‘don’t worry’ type of thing. You grumble, cross your arms, and follow after him in silence after that. There isn't a point in talking if the never-ending fountain of words wants to actually be quiet for once.

For a while you walk, and you hear the wind pick up and howl. Occasionally sand blows your way, but its merely remnants, grains and dust. After a while Sign stops, and you stop, and you both settle down on some protruding rocks and wait. Sign pulls out a notebook and begins scribbling, you pull out your small portable husktop and try and hook to a network with no success.

Faintly, the howling sounds a bit like screaming, but you attribute it to the wind and ignore it for a time being. It is when Sign frowns and slips his notebook away that you pause and strain your ears to listen harder. Yes, that actually did sound like screaming you think, and you stand up.

“Should we check it out?” you ask. Sign hums, rocks on his heels in thought, and then nods. You head further in.

It’s darker so you light up the place with a ball of psionic energy. The world around you pulses red and blue, a perfect, unending beat. Sign steps ahead of you and peers around a corner. He pauses, blinks, and then crouches down with a smile. You hesitantly follow after him and pause at the edge of the turn, curious as to what has caught his attention, wary that it's a predator that he thinks is some cuddly animal. Again.

“Hey, you okay little one?” Sign asks, reaching out a hand. You see what looks like a freshly pupated wiggler, he or she is so small. They’re curled and crouched against a corner of the cave wall screeching and screaming. It might have been out of fright of the storm, but more likely it is because of the gash on their leg. It bleeds teal bright, familiar teal; you have to fight down a shudder of memory, the sight of teal everywhere on everything, but most of all on yourself. You barely succeed, but you do succeed and with a controlled breath you focus back on Sign and the wiggler. Not even a second has passed.

In response to the question Sign gets sharp, panicked clicks and growls, low whirrling sounds and a few high pitched whines. You recognize the sounds, you use them when you fall into a fit because speaking and making actual words is harder when everything is twisted around in confusion and terror. She, for the teal blood identified herself as such, is terrified. You kneel down next to Sign and tug out a pair of bandages from you pouch.

“I’m going to dreth your wound,” you tell her, but you doubt she can fully understand you. It looks like she hasn’t even had her first schoolfeeding yet. Sign repeats an approximation of your words in the gutteral, natural, instinctive language that doesn't really have any meaning, yet everyone understands it anyway, and the little teal blood sniffles but nods consent. You wrap her leg and feel about it with your psionics.

“Ith not broken,” you say to Sign. “But it ith fractured.” Sign nods in understanding and smiles sweetly at the little girl. He speaks to her, but you ignore the words.

For the duration of the storm you help the little teal blood out. You learn that she lost her lusus in the caves after it told her to hide. It didn’t tell her why, but she didn’t think, she just did as told. Or at least this is what Sign says as you aren't really paying attention to the whirling clicks, growls, and whines coming from the wiggler. You figure it’s most probably because of the storm, and when she’s feeling better and the storm is beginning to wane you both help her search the caves for her lusus.

You find an egg.

You’re not quite sure what is up with the egg, but when the little girl’s face lights up and she races to it and wraps her hands about it you guessed you found what she lost. How that equates to her lusus you don't know, but then lusii aren't your area of specification anyway so what does it matter in the end? She babbles in that instinctual language her thanks. You laugh and tug at your hair. Sign smiles sadly.

“Be good,” he says to her. “Build your hive, be something great. Maybe we’ll see you again some day.”

You shake your head. Trust him to say something like that, when he knows how unlikely it will be. “Leth show her out of the caveth at leath.” Sign looks at you, and there is a look on his face you don’t quite understand or know how to read as your still learning the little nuances of your friend, but then the look is gone he nods in agreement. You both help the girl to the entrance you tumbled into. The entrance had about three feet of additional sand piled up, but otherwise looked no worse than going in. The storm had passed, now, but the sun still shines bright. You look at the outside and squint. When the little girl moves to race out into the desert you grab her and pull her back, shaking your head.

_Dangerous_ you tell her. You don’t know how long she’s been in the caves, but she must have run here when the moons were high in the sky. This probably wasn’t the first storm to blow through here, and she might have been down here for a while. You offer her some of your food from your pack, and then pull your cloak off of your shoulders. You hand it to her.

_Take_ , you say. _Safe_ , you add. Sign watches you with surprised eyes and you roll yours at him.

“I can be a nithe guy onthe in a while,” you tell him. “I’m not a complete bulgethucking tool.” Sign laughs.

You swaddle the young troll in your cloak, wrap her lusus up with her, and then nod. She nibbles on the food and smiles back and then she runs out into the sunlight.

“We’ll be stuck here now until nightfall, you know,” Sign tells you.

“And you’re complaining why?” you ask back. “I thought the whole thing you’ve been preaching had thith whole ‘be nithe to your fellow troll’ bullshit attached.”

“And now is when you choose to listen?” he says with a raised brow.

“Oh fuck you Thign,” you reply. He laughs. That is how you know everything will turn out okay, for the wiggler, and for yourselves. At least until it's not, but then that is a long time off, and best half-forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Changed Disciple to 'Di' as Signless is already 'Sign' and this is a mash of Psii's thoughts, POV, and 2nd POV all rolled int one mess.  
> Retracted, revised, and added a few sentences in to clarify, clear up, or reduce clutter from the original tumblr draft.
> 
> Sign = Signless  
> Di = Disciple  
> Mother = Dolorosa [pre-Rainbow Drinker]  
> the kid in this story is a very young Neophyte Redglare and her lusus Pyralsprite [I do hope I'm spelling that right....]


	2. Defend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Defend - Psiioniic goes through a typical day, protecting his mutant blooded friend [characters Signless, Psiioniic, Disciple, Dolorosa; Psiioniic 2nd POV]  
> Tumblr Prompt

The day starts out like normal. You wake up. You roll off of your pile. You sort of wiggle and crawl your way to your husktop. Half-awake, half-asleep, you turn it on and begin your routine checks of the newsfeeds, the culling block list, and other systems that you keep an eye on for safety. By the time you’re certain that none of your names have shown up anywhere you’re fully awake and getting hungry.

Sign is already up, probably has been for hours longer than you have, and he’s sipping on some sort of liquid and jotting down notes onto a notebook in the nutrition block. Possibly new sermons to say, or the latest record of his dreams, since that is what he always does in the morning. You are still a bit bleary eyed and if Di saw you she might scream ‘Captor Zombie!’ again just to annoy you.

Like normal, you rummage through the cupboards and the thermal hull and then make yourself a strong cup of the caffeinated beverage and plop down right next to Sign. He doesn’t acknowledge you, but when he’s this deep into his work he rarely does. Di bounds into the nutrition block next, terrifyingly chipper. Mother is most likely out, looking for locations for Sign to preach, or sewing up new clothes for them all to wear.

Your morning continues like normal all the way to the afternoon. By then Sign has finished writing and Di is getting restless being inside for so long. Mother returns and pulls you aside to talk about the latest location she’s found for Sign to preach at in a few hours. She hands you her hand drawn maps and together you both go over the high spots, low spots, and best defensive positions just in case someone decides to make trouble. It doesn’t happen often, but given Sign’s state of existence and the topics he speaks on the precaution is more than necessary.

Di would join you but not for long; she’d rather you fill her in while you’re on your way to the spot than sit through the details with you. Instead she grabs Sign and they disappear for another hour and then you are all on your way. Mother and Di set up the platform while Sign goes over his notes last minute, and you do a quick security check of the area. You agree with Mother’s earlier points and set up tiny little nodes to alert you of anyone standing in the places with the best damaging shot. They’ll send an alarm, a ping, to your receiver if anyone pulls a weapon and, pleased with your security precautions you rejoin Mother, Di, and Sign.

Sign starts speaking to an empty crowd first. Highbloods, midbloods, and lowbloods trickle into the area slowly, drawn by the short trolls honeyed voice and his sweet, deceptive words. You stand behind him to his left at attention. Your hands are clenched behind your back, your head is held high, and your eyes a bright and narrowed on the crowd. You skim for trolls who might pose a danger. Next to you, on Sign’s right, stands Di in a similar, if more relaxed position. Her hands flex warily as she watches the crowd as well. To the side stands Mother.

It happens when the crowds begin to thin, Sign’s sermon coming to an end. You get a warning signal from one of your markers. Your eyes snap in the direction the pinging is coming from as your hands come up wrapped in the glow of your psionics. You pull Sign back with them, tossing him into Di who wraps herself around him, covers him from any danger. Mother pulls out a chainsaw, and how she hides it in her skirts you would never understand. She revvs it, her peircing gaze searching the crowd. By now those who weren’t looking for a fight have fled, and those who were remained behind.

You launch into battle immediately, your pan splitting into two flows of thought, numbers, and strategies almost instantly. Half of you is focused on the others as Di drags Sign away at your sharp command, Mother following after with her chainsaw raised to protect them both, and you cover all three with your psionics like a shield until they’re gone. You’ll meet up with them at a predetermined location later.

The other half of you focuses on the threat. You pull trolls’ feet out from under them, you tug their weapons and toss them until they’re buried into the stone behind you. You even redirect weapons fire away from anyone. You lift and toss trolls around like its childsplay. Part of you wants to pull them apart, to make their blood run like a rainbow for daring to attack Sign who had preached nothing but peace and hope and happiness. Even if you know his words would become nothing, it irks you that they would bring battle to a peaceful sermon. You don’t, despite the temptation, because it isn’t what Sign wants. Instead you toss them about, stick them in the air, and threaten them but you don’t actually hurt them.

Eventually you walk by each troll, immobilized by your powers, and with a sharp spark you shut down the pans; knock them into sleep. It’s easy to do so, to use your psionics to slip into and map their think pans and find where to touch, to zap, to knock them into a dreamstate. By then the authorities are on their way and you’ve just finished with the would-be attackers so you run. You don’t look back.

You meet up with Mother, Di, and Sign and both are pleased that you’re alright and not hurt. They’ve already gone to the temporary hive that you rented out, packed up everything, and are ready to flee into the night. Mother hands you your portable husktop and gives you a nod and a hug. Sign is pouting, probably because he knows you were the one who ordered Mother and Di to get him out of harms way like he couldn’t take care of himself. He probably would’ve torn into you about it right now, but Di is holding his arm tight in warning.

Instead he sighs, gives you a nod, and all of you run off into the night. You tap keys on your smaller husktop, hacking as you move, and make sure you’re names aren’t showing up or that the incident report lacks your names, descriptions, and tells only what you want it to. You’re lucky.

“You’re an ass,” Sign says once Di let’s go of his arm. He's calmer, now, and it appears he's not inclined to tear into you for your actions earlier. Like how you purposely set it up so that you would be left behind while the others flee to safety. Sign doesn't like that, and you know he never will, but that doesn't stop you from risking life, limb, and your sanity for him. You suspect he realizes you never will do what he wants in situations like that, and a part of him, you think, is pleased by your 'show of independence' and subsequently revolted because somewhere in his cluttered pan he knows _why_ you do what you do for him. Independence is not a factor in your choices or your actions.

“And you’re an idiot,” you reply, swallowing down a host of other words that you want to say, but never will. “If you died then thith whole plan of yourth goeth up in thmoke.”

“You’re still an ass,” Sign repeats, and all is well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Changed Disciple to 'Di' since Signless is already 'Sign' and this is essentially a blur of Psii's thoughts, his POV, and 2nd POV all rolled into one.  
> Added a few sentences, revised or retracted a few sentences, form the original draft on tumblr.
> 
> Sign = Signless  
> Di = Disciple  
> Mother = Dolorosa [pre-Rainbow Drinker]


End file.
